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Alpha Preview Update (August)
🕑 Added 2024-08-27 23:12:07 +0000 UTCPassword: augustus_gloop ⬅ ❗️
Incomplete routes guide ⬅ ❗️please check if you suspect your game ended early :)
What's New:
13,000 words of new content!
New Briony character interlude
New Red character interlude
Participate in some animal husbandry with Red
Participate in (or prevent) some casual mangling with Briony
Developer's Notes:
[Content warning for this update: description of a sick animal/pet, though the animal is ultimately totally okay!]
Hello, everyone! My update for you this month is extremely straightforward: as I've mentioned for the last few months, I'm turning my focus to catching up on many of the character interludes before I move on with the main story, so as to get things like timing and cross-coordination between storylines right, so this is me just plugging away at that! I won't start writing the Ascendancy Festival, I suspect, until at least one character's interludes catch up to it within the game's timeline, but we're getting very close to that moment as well!
So with that being said, this month's update is pretty self-explanatory! And full of fluff and comedic light-heartedness, I might add. I think after the sizzling sexual tension of Chase's last interlude, and the urgent forebodingness of Blade's interlude before that, I just needed some fluff and silliness and laughter, which both Briony and Red's interludes have in spades this time. I also happened to read a novel this month that proved deeply upsetting to me when it took a hard turn into content I was NOT expecting, so consider this update my homemade panacea for that, lol.
(We also watched Alien: Romulus and started the TV show Evil last week, too... I used to be an avid horror fan, but I think age and time have naturally turned my sensibilities a tad more delicate, LOL. We just finished Downton Abbey earlier this month (obsessed. obsessed forever), so it's with gladness that I turn back to Prihine's short story, which reminds me more of that... albeit with murder.........)
Anyway, the Twine conversion is moving briskly along--I just finished Chapter 7, and then it'll be reviewing the code for half of Chapter 8, converting everyone's character interludes, and finishing up some systems stuff like gambling and quests before I think things are ready for the shift over--and I worked a decent bit on the new novel project, too, though as always, not as much as I would have liked! I still worry that I'm not doing enough, but thankfully my higher consciousness--the one that supersedes the anxious animal hindbrain that prods me to keep churning away at things--assures me it's okay to not lose sleep and ruin my health over work, lol.
Anyway, that's all I have for now! I think this month is particularly auspicious because the wordcount without code turned out to be exactly 1,190,000 (no rounding at all), which I think is a fun little coincidence! Tada! 🎉
Total wordcount: 1,190,000 words without code
What's Next:
More character interludes! I'm getting a whiff that Ayla, and perhaps Trouble or Riel, are next. And perhaps more unfinished loose ends if I've got time, birthdays we've missed and so on and so forth.
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope your end of August goes spectacularly!
Comments
Lena Nguyen
Hi there, sorry for the late response! The game will set your closest friendship to whoever your highest relationship is, but if that's a tie (like if Trouble and Chase both are at 100%), the game will randomly pick between one of the two! The game checks these relationships quite frequently, though, so Chase might be designated as your "bestie" again quite rapidly throughout Chapter 7. If you want to make sure that you see only Chase scenes, I'd recommend either using the quickbuild to manually set the relationships that way for now or do a bit of stat-farming so that Trouble is lower than Chase! I hope that helps, and thanks so much for your support and kind words!! <3
Sunny
Forever grateful that I became a patreon member 😌♥️ I do have a quick question tho, in chapter Seven like right before it began, in my social link my closest friendship went from Chase to Trouble, and while I love our tall ball of energy I crave those Chase interactions;u;. My question is if this is supposed to happen? Or can I got through chapter 7 with Chase as bestie?
Lena Nguyen
Bless you for these!!! I’m adding them to my kindle to-reads right now! They all sound exactly up my alley, so thank you, this will be a perfect reset lol!
tact-and-impulse
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo is probably the closest thing I've read to Spirited Away, combined with evocative descriptions of the Malaysia setting. And really, anything by Mimi Matthews who's my favorite historical romance author now for great research and emotional dialogue. The Work of Art and The Belle of Belgrave Square are ones I've reread. I just picked up The Lily of Ludgate Hill from the library and already loving it!
emeraldgreaves
Right??? I like to say that you don’t watch The Gilded Age so much as look at each scene and estimate the square yardage of fabric in frame lol
Cattro
RED TIME!!
Ema
Of course!! I always love gossiping with Briony. And watching birds explode with Red I guess
Robin
i can’t wait to play this update with my red-mancer! (also i love the password lmao)
Lena Nguyen
No worries, thanks so much for letting me vent briefly about it!! I was SO upset about it lol I immediately closed out the book and I didn’t read anything new for like a week, I needed the fluff of this month’s update to heal my soul!! 😂 talking about types with Briony like 🍵😌
Ema
The way I would have literally hurled the book across the room! 😱 This is why they need ratings and triggers for books, for real. I'm so sorry that you had that sprung on you!!
Lena Nguyen
Thank you so much for reading! 💖 I also did NOT know about that euphemism, lol, so the coincidence is hilarious! 😂
Lena Nguyen
The book was the Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn! I’d never heard of it and just picked it up at the library, and I was really enjoying its prose (despite it being a clear artifact of 80s fantasy, which was when it was written), but then it took a really dark turn near the end… If I can spill lol, [spoilers, also HEAVY trigger warnings for sexual assault}: The protagonist is principally described as a scholarly, mannered, inquisitive young prince whom everyone doubts due to his lacking the military barbarity of his forefathers; when he inherits the throne, he's most notable for the fact that he refuses to hunt and kill dragons, as is tradition for the rulers of his land when they take the throne. He later reveals that he’s actually deliberately cultivated this sort of eccentric, weak, academic demeanor not only out of compassion towards dragons, but because he’s also actually cunning and politically-savvy and a little ruthless, and seeks to accomplish peace for his kingdom through political maneuvering and economic prosperity rather than through warfare. You spend like 90% of the book rooting for him and his attempts to introduce peace to a culture that historically valued violence, but uhhhh at the end of the book, he violently rapes his enemy's daughter after being drugged and tricked by her into having sex (thinking it's his wife)... while his own wife is held prisoner by the same woman and is also repeatedly gang-raped... which was not anything I was ever expecting........ I think the whole "point" of this was that his believing he was separate from the "savagery" of his ancestors was an illusion, one that breaks his spirit to realize, but... yeah, it kind of scarred me to take that hard turn haha 🥹 Sorry if that's too much detail, I was just taken really off-guard!!
Ema
Also, having now read the updates: firstly, thanks for the pathetic man lover representation! Even if Briony did roast me. 😔✊ Second: did you know that Wolf's Den was a euphemism for a brothel back in Rome? Thought it was funny to see that and discussing a brothel in the same scene!
Lena Nguyen
I LOVED IT SO MUCH, I think I’m in that phase now lol! We’re going to watch the Gilded Age next, which I didn’t like as much, but the costumes are just 😍
Lena Nguyen
I would love them!!
tact-and-impulse
can't wait to play the update! (also, are you accepting any cleansing book recs?)
Sophia Strange
the red interlude has me actively putting my phone down aghast, giggling, and picking my phone up again i caNTTT
emeraldgreaves
oh i had a hardcore downton abbey phase a few years ago. lowkey i’m still obsessed with how much attention they put into the period details
Ema
What was the book? Spill the 🍵 👀
Prince the She
THE PASSWORD LOL😭
